Entertainment desk
< October 24	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 25

Cover vs. Sample

What is in music the demarcation line between a cover (version) of a piece of music and a sample that consists of basically the same melodies as the original? It seems that the term cover is usually only used when the same title remains. So Gangsta's Paradise can't be a cover of Pastime Paradise. But this is not handled consistently. In its article, Lambada (song) is called a cover of two adaptions of Llorando se fue. Whosampled lists Jean-Jacques Perrey's The Elephant Never Forgets as cover of Beethoven's Turkish March, not as a sample. What's the logic behind this? --KnightMove (talk) 19:40, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See cover and sample. A cover is when one musician performs a song written or popularized by someone else. A sample is when a musician includes someone else's recording in their recording. Staecker (talk) 19:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's an answer... but not to my question. --KnightMove (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(I think I answered the question) Cover vs sample has nothing to do with the title of the song. A cover is the same song done again by another person. A sample is when some original recording is reused as part of somebody else's performance (the exact recording- not just re-doing the song again). It is impossible to sample Beethoven, since there is no "original" Beethoven recording to use. Staecker (talk) 20:24, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible to sample someone playing Beethoven though. †dismas†|^(talk) 23:53, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Staecker: For Beethoven, WhoSampled lists "179 samples, 57 covers, 1 remix". Of course the term "sample" is also used for inclusion of melodical element's of another music piece in your own - or how would you call this otherwise? When you check Poker_Face_(Lady_Gaga_song)#Composition - do you agree that the hookline samples the "Ma-Ma-Ma-Maa" of Boney M's Ma Baker or not? --KnightMove (talk) 03:53, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And another example from WhoSampled: Did Dr. Alban really "sample" The Lone Ranger, when he only re-sang the intro for his own piece of music? --KnightMove (talk) 04:44, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with whosampled.com, but it looks like a user-contributed database. In that case it's not hard for me to believe that they don't have strong policing on the point of cover vs sample. But in our articles, and I believe in universal usage, the two concepts are very different and sampling always refers to some "original" recording which is reused. In my experience these usage of snippets of Beethoven or whatever would be described as musical quotations. As for your examples, I would say they are both quotations rather than samples. I don't know the song, but it sounds like Ms. Gaga herself is singing the "ma-ma-ma" part, which would mean it's not a sample. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm being pedantic about definitions here- I think this really is how these words are commonly used (though correct me if I'm wrong). Staecker (talk) 11:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's the situation of new lyrics to existing music, as with "Surfin' U.S.A. (song)". I don't know if there's a term for that, other than "sung to the tune of..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:35, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

These aren't even concepts on the same continuum, they aren't related to each other really, except that they are both used in music. There is no reason one cannot make a cover of another song that contains sampling. They aren't mutually exclusive concepts. A cover song just means "taking the music and lyrics of the original song and performing it yourself with your own interpretation". That's not really got anything to do with sampling. Sampling is "taking a small piece of one recording, and using it in your own recording". For example, the Amen break is perhaps the most sampled bit of music in history, and yet essentially NONE of the songs that use it resembles the original track it comes from. They aren't covers. Weezer's version of "Africa" contains zero samples, it's the band playing the song that was originally recorded by another band. --Jayron 32 11:06, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
" Of course the term "sample" is also used for inclusion of melodical element's of another music piece in your own - or how would you call this otherwise? " If you are asking what it is called when a musical piece incorporates notes or lyrics from a different musical piece but the performance is actually done by the new musicians, that would be "incorporating elements from" or "quoting" or "referencing". --Khajidha (talk) 12:24, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There's an article about the practice called musical quotation, which is already linked above. --Jayron 32 12:29, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Staecker, Jeyron32, Khajidha: Thank you for your analyses. Ok, now I accept as a fact that "sample" is not a proper denomer for what should be called a musical quotation of elements from another piece of music. However, to conclude:

About "how these words are commonly used": Google search for "Lady Gaga" "Poker Face" "Boney m" "Ma Baker" "sample" returns some 6000 results, when you replace the "sample" by "quote", "quotation" or "reference", they are some 100-300. It seems to be totally common to call a quotation "sample", not only using this specific example. (Whatever the quality of WhoSampled... there must be reasons that "sample" and "cover" are the only categories they use).
About "not even concepts on the same continuum, they aren't related to each other": Of course a piece of music can contains samples/quotations of another to such an extent that it almost sounds like a cover, even though it is none. Ok, the proper term for this situation appears to be "... is largely based on..." or similar. --KnightMove (talk) 19:27, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that the search finds our article which does claim Poker Face samples Ma Baker, albeit only in the caption for the sample of Poker Face. I haven't modified this since while I suspect the above are right, I'm not confident enough that I'm willing to change it. I also found this discussion [1] where someone claims it was a sample albeit with a modified pitch. Of course, confirmation from Lady Gaga or someone involved in the production would hopefully be the best source. (Well certain artists, cough cough, Vanilla Ice, have made bizarre claims about their sampling before but even these have generally been dropped.) More generally though, I wonder if the problem is in part that 'musical quotation' is used a lot less on the context of lots of pop and contemporary music. Perhaps it's just because it's an incomplete article, but our article seems to include examples from classical music and opera and some from jazz near the end. There is of course more opportunity to quote parts of works, and in particular longer parts of works that may be more likely to be recognised as quotation in longer works. Possibly it's also clearer in instrumental pieces. This source [2] just uses "comes from". I also wonder how a distinction is made between quotation and Variation (music), which seems to get to the original question namely how different does it have to be before it's not simply quotation? I guess the infamous Blurred Lines whatever the copyright situation would be variation. Maybe also this case [3] [4] fairly famous in NZ. Nil Einne (talk) 03:37, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm mostly a country music fan, so this discussion reminds me of Wild Side of Life by Hank Thompson. The song is built around a melody that had been used in several songs before (including a couple other really big hits) and also inspired an "answer song" using the same melody and making direct references to "Wild Side of Life". But those are never described as "samples", the phrasing is always "used in" or "incorporating" or the like. I think many of the online sources the original poster is looking at are just fans using the words incorrectly, and that if the OP looks for more formal discussion (from musicians or historians of music) they will find that the terms are used more like how we have described them here.--Khajidha (talk) 15:49, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In the article On the Floor, I have now found the concept probably workling best for most of the situations I think about:

"Interpolation in music generally refers to a music track reproducing a portion of another song in some other way, without the direct use or sample from the actual source recording. This is also known as a "replayed sample".

--KnightMove (talk) 02:59, 29 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]